The profession faces a recruitment and retention problem, whilst at the same time increasing numbers of students aren't selecting careers within farm animal practice. Recent research from universities and the student Farm Animal Veterinary Society have considered causes and barriers. More recent movements by several farm vets and veterinary associations have sought to highlight farm vets without ‘traditional’ farm vet backgrounds. This article considers the FAVS report ( Owen, 2023 ) alongside other literature and research into potential barriers to students entering farm animal practice, whilst the panel discussions provides the views of experienced veterinary surgeons working in the farm sector as to what practitioners, and the wider profession can do to increase the number of students considering and choosing careers in farm animal practice.

For ungulates and other long-lived species, life-history theory predicts that nutritional reserves are allocated to reproduction in a state-dependent manner because survival is highly conserved. Further, as per capita food abundance and nutritional reserves decline (i.e., density dependence intensifies), reproduction and recruitment become increasingly sensitive to weather. Thus, the degree to which weather influences vital rates should be associated with proximity to nutritional carrying capacity-a notion that we refer to as the Nutritional Buffer Hypothesis. We tested the Nutritional Buffer Hypothesis using six moose (Alces alces) populations that varied in calf recruitment (33-69 calves/100 cows). We predicted that populations with high calf recruitment were nutritionally buffered against the effects of unfavorable weather, and thus were below nutritional carrying capacity. We applied a suite of tools to quantify habitat and nutritional condition of each population and found that increased browse condition, forage quality, and body fat were associated with increased pregnancy and calf recruitment, thereby providing multiple lines of evidence that declines in calf recruitment were underpinned by resource limitation. From 2001 to 2015, recruitment was more sensitive to interannual variation in weather (e.g., winter severity, drought) and plant phenology (e.g., duration of spring) for populations with reduced browse condition, forage quality, and body fat, suggesting these populations lacked the nutritional reserves necessary to buffer demographic performance against the effects of unfavorable weather. Further, average within-population calf recruitment was determined by regional climatic variation, suggesting that the pattern of reduced recruitment near the southern range boundary of moose stems from an interaction between climate and resource limitation. When coupled with information on habitat, nutrition, weather, and climate, life-history theory provides a framework to estimate nutritional limitation, proximity to nutritional carrying capacity, and impacts of climate change for ungulates.

Bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) management involves ecological and socioeconomic aspects, creating a social-ecological system (SES). Social-ecological thresholds can be identified in the system to assess its specific resilience in response to climate stressors. Thus, the aim of this study is to build a dynamic model to assess whether this system is resilient to a particular stressor (water stress). In this study, the SES is considered resilient if the bighorn population is sufficiently large to provide economic revenue to landowners and promote conservation action. We validate and formalize this model by conducting semistructured interviews to Bonfil ejido landowners located in Baja California Sur (BCS), Mexico, and to experts in the field of recreational hunting and wildlife management. To explore the changes in specific resilience in this SES, we conduct simulations to assess the impact of rainfall variability patterns on the system. Our results indicate that rainfall variations with respect to the historical record have the potential to disrupt both the species and the local economy and that the lack of adaptive capacity in both harvest and conservation strategies may affect the dynamics of the whole SES. Finally, this paper explores how adaptive wildlife conservation management strategies can enhance the resilience of both subsystems in this SES.

AbstractThe persistence of many migratory ungulate populations worldwide is threatened due to anthropogenic impacts to seasonal ranges and migration routes. While many studies have linked migratory ungulate declines to migration disruption or loss, very few have explored the underlying factors that determine whether a population perishes or persists. In some cases, populations undergo severe declines and extirpation after migration loss; however, others appear able to persist as residents. We predict that to persist, populations must replace the traditional benefits of migration by altering the foraging strategies they employ as residents within one seasonal range. We propose the alternative foraging strategies (AFS) hypothesis as a framework for identifying various behavioral strategies that populations may use to cope with migration loss. We tested the hypothesis using the formerly migratory Teton bighorn sheep population in northwest Wyoming, which ceased migrating over 60 yr ago, but has persisted as a resident population. We used global positioning system data to evaluate winter and summer habitat selection and seasonal elevational movements for 28 adult female bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) from 2008 to 2010. Resource selection functions revealed that bighorn sheep employ winter foraging strategies to survive as residents by seeking out rugged, high‐elevation, windswept ridgelines. Seasonal movement analyses indicated that bighorn sheep undergo a newly documented “abbreviated migration” strategy that is closely synchronized with vegetation green‐up patterns within their one range. Bighorn sheep descend 500 m in elevation and travel up to 10 km in spring, gaining access to newly emergent forage approximately 30 d before it appears on their high‐elevation winter and summer ranges. Our findings indicate that the Teton bighorn sheep population has persisted due to its habitat selection, AFS, and unique movement patterns, which allow migration loss to be mediated to some extent. The identification of AFS and the habitats that support them can help reveal the underlying benefits of migration and conserve populations in the face of future migration loss.

This paper addresses the mainstreaming of uncertainty in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) using as a case South and Southeast Asia, a region highly vulnerable to a wide range of natural disasters. Improvements in the implementation of DRR and CCA at the community and regional levels can be realized when the underlying uncertainties are understood and made transparent by all those involved in the science, practice and decision making of natural hazard management. This theme has been explored in a think tank fashion through knowledge elicitation and sharing among experts in the research community as well as practitioners and policy advisers with extensive experience with and insight into DRR and CCA at the regional and/or local levels. The intended result has been the identification of the means by which the capacity to integrate uncertainty can be developed. In this elicitation process, sources of uncertainty associated with the implementation of best practices in DRR and CCA at the regional and local levels. The results of presented are considered by the stakeholders involved to be valuable in expanding capacity to plan and implement more effective DRR and CCA policies and measures particularly at the community level where uncertainty plays a central role for those most vulnerable to current and future climate extreme events, and socio-economic constraints and changes.

Wild sheep in North America were abundant and widely distributed prior to European exploration and settlement. By the early twentieth century unregulated hunting, forage competition with domestic livestock, introduced diseases, and human encroachment had dramatically reduced bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) numbers and distribution in the western US, southern Canada, and mainland and Baja Peninsula Mexico. The restoration of bighorn sheep has been a remarkable conservation success, as a result of efforts by wildlife and land management agencies, conservation organizations, private landowners and other stakeholders. These efforts have been largely underwritten by pro-hunting conservation organizations.

WE write this letter as representatives of the specialist species associations and societies of the BVA holding a particular interest in bluetongue and the present pan-European problems that this disease in its numerous varieties poses. The pharmaceutical industry rose magnificently to the

1. Our understanding of the interplay between density dependence, climatic perturbations, and conservation practices on the dynamics of small populations is still limited. This can result in uninformed strategies that put endangered populations at risk. Moreover, the data available for a large number of populations in such circumstances are sparse and mined with missing data. Under the current climate change scenarios, it is essential to develop appropriate inferential methods that can make use of such data sets. 2. We studied a population of desert bighorn sheep introduced to Tiburon Island, Mexico in 1975 and subjected to irregular extractions for the last 10 years. The unique attributes of this population are absence of predation and disease, thereby permitting us to explore the combined effect of density dependence, environmental variability and extraction in a 'controlled setting.' Using a combination of nonlinear discrete models with long-term field data, we constructed three basic Bayesian state space models with increasing density dependence (DD), and the same three models with the addition of summer drought effects. 3. We subsequently used Monte Carlo simulations to evaluate the combined effect of drought, DD, and increasing extractions on the probability of population survival under two climate change scenarios (based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predictions): (i) increase in drought variability; and (ii) increase in mean drought severity. 4. The population grew from 16 individuals introduced in 1975 to close to 700 by 1993. Our results show that the population's growth was dominated by DD, with drought having a secondary but still relevant effect on its dynamics. 5. Our predictions suggest that under climate change scenario (i), extraction dominates the fate of the population, while for scenario (ii), an increase in mean drought affects the population's probability of survival in an equivalent magnitude as extractions. Thus, for the long-term survival of the population, our results stress that a more variable environment is less threatening than one in which the mean conditions become harsher. Current climate change scenarios and their underlying uncertainty make studies such as this one crucial for understanding the dynamics of ungulate populations and their conservation.